Béménil (over the top)

Saturday morning in Charmes

FRIDAY 25 APRIL

Before cruising to our next stop on Friday we walked to the local village of Gripport to have a look around.  To get there we had to cross a lock on an old bridge that carried rail tracks.  The tracks would have been used by the electric barge towing locos to cross from one side of the canal to the other when the towing tracks changed sides.

As with the majority of villages we visit the place was practically deserted other than some tradesmen working on a house.  The war memorial commemorated those from two world wars and the small number of inscriptions shows just how small the village is.  Of course, those killed would still have had a devasting impact on the population.

Considering how mairies are usually one of the largest and best kept buildings in a village the one in Gripport must be one of the most non-descript we’ve come across:

Gripport main street with church in background

Back at the boat we set off for a short cruise to the town of Charmes.  On the way we crossed the departmental border leaving Meurthe et Moselle and entering Vosges.  The Moselle ran alongside the canal and on the other side we passed many lakes that were originally gravel pits and in a couple of places gravel was still being extracted.  On the outskirts of Charmes we saw two brick chimneys from an old wire making factory.  Unlike in the UK, we hardly ever see brick-built factory and mill chimneys and wonder if there is not so much pride in industrial heritage in France.

It was starting to feel a bit touristy with a few motorhomes and tents in camping grounds that we passed.  Every van we saw had either French or Belgian plates, maybe the Brits, Dutch and Germans aren’t venturing out much yet because of the currently cool weather.  The town mooring in Charmes was shared with a motorhome and campervan park and again, all were French or Belgians.

Moored in Charmes

While I was sorting the boat out after the cruise Karen popped to the tourist office to see if they had any self-guided trails.  As is so often the case, when we want to go somewhere, the office was closed but Karen saw a trail map displayed in the window so took a picture so we could follow the route.  Although the map had a couple of dozen places of interest marked, there were no explanations so it was going to be an interesting tour.  Following the map the first thing we came across were the remains of the town lavoir which was pleasing to us as lavoir collecting is one of our joint passions.  Strangely it was practically next to the boat, and we hadn’t even noticed it.

When we were mooring up, we’d noticed a storks’ nest on one of the plane trees next to us.  It’s at the top of the second tree from the right in the picture above.

Sadly, the washing basin of the lavoir had been paved over…

…but we did find an old photograph of when it was in use. The old bridge has been replaced too:

The trouble with only having a map to follow meant we had no information on what we were looking at most of the time, let alone the history.  I was very disappointed when trying to find out more online later as there seemed to be very little information, e.g. when the town fortifications were built. They were a little disappointing to say the least, not running to any length and access to walk along the top wasn’t allowed.

Call these fortifications?

Here are some of the other ‘sights’:

WWII memorial

WWI memorial

We could find no explanation for why socks decorated the town

Charmes mairie – second non-descript one of the day

After finishing our tour around the town, we went back to spend the rest of the day on and around the boat.  It seemed like I was wrong on the motorhome supposition as three of the ones that arrived in the early evening were Germans, two were Swiss and one was Dutch.

On Friday we cruised seven kilometres up four locks and saw no boats on the move.

SATURDAY 26 APRIL

I went for a walk while Karen had her morning run and then we set off for Nomexy as apparently there were some stunning fortifications to walk around.  It took a couple of hours or so to get there and it felt sort of familiar when we moored up.  We then realised we’d been before but had used a different name to describe the place in our boat log.  Nomexy was where the mooring was but in 2021 we’d recorded the stop as Châtel-sur-Moselle as that’s where the fortifications were, a little way away across the other side of the Moselle.

Feeling a little disappointed we decided to carry on to Thaon-les-Vosges.  It was a much warmer day with plenty of sunshine making it feel that the weather was beginning to break.  As we left Charmes we saw another short section of the city walls that were still standing.  These were slightly more impressive than those we’d seen on the town trail but still nothing to really rave about unlike those we’d seen at Châtel-sur-Moselle.

There were still plenty of gravel pits, both old and new, alongside the canal and as we neared Thaon-les-Vosges we came across a vast area still being worked.  The aggregate was being loaded onto boats which travelled a few locks upstream for onward transportation.  The boats were unusual in that, although they were the standard 38 metre length of small péniches, they had a little cabin at the front.  Our guess was that the boats were built specifically for the purpose and only used as day boats thus no need for a proper cabin and living quarters.   As it was the weekend, the boats didn’t appear to be working so at least we wouldn’t have to worry about negotiating past them as knowing our luck we would meet them on a bend.

Quartz moored for the weekend

We’d been travelling for a week and had only called VNF once because of a problem with a lock.  This changed on Saturday as we had to call them three times on our way to Thaon-les-Vosges because our télécommande wouldn’t trigger the locking operation as we approached three different locks.  Fortunately, the control centre had remote access and were able to set the locks for us therefore we were able to carry on without any real delay.

Our friends Alistair and Sabine have been living on their narrowboat over here for over 20 years and are doing a similar trip to us this year.  We’ve been in constant touch as we hope to cruise together on the Rhine leg of the journey in June or July.  They have been one or two days ahead of us so far but had decided to stay put on Saturday at Thaon-les-Vosges which is where we were headed.  We found them next to a large pétanque club and moored up behind them.  Matches were in full swing on all the courts, some of which were under cover which I suppose allows for practice during the winter months.  Further unofficial matches were being played all around the area.

Fringe boules match outside the club

Our friends came over to ours for drinks in the evening and we had a great time catching up as we hadn’t seen each other since we blacked our boats together in September 2024 in a dry dock in Wittring on the Sarre.  Just after they came over, a private cruiser turned up and moored with us, the only boat we saw on the move all day.

Moored with Vector at Thaon-les-Vosges

On Saturday we cruised 18 km up 11 locks and saw the one boat on the move.

SUNDAY 27 APRIL

Looking at the picture above of the two boats, a sign can just be made out on the building on the other side of the cut.

It says it was the only hot water lavoir built by the German company mentioned.  The sign also has an old photograph of the lavoir in use but sadly it has now been converted to an office but at least its original frontage can still be made out.

After a quick walk we bid farewell to Alistair and Sabine and set off for the summit of the canal which sits above Épinal.  For once it was a lovely day with plenty of sun and real warmth.  The canal leading out of Thaon-les-Vosges had a lovely long line a plane trees coming into leaf.  These were clearly younger than the canal but would fulfil their duty in years to come.

Next we passed three more of the aggregate carrying commercials moored up at the unloading site.

Actually, only two of them were sister ships to Quartz that we saw yesterday with the cabin at the front; these were the pair breasted up together: Fieldspar and Mica.  The third was a normal commercial as its cabin and living quarters were at the rear.  We then passed this ‘all things hunting’ shop whose name rather gives it away.

After going up a lock that had unusual gates in that they were curved we were at the junction with the Épinal branch.

Curved lock gates

We weren’t going to go down to Épinal as we’d spent some time there previously and instead carried on up to the summit.

Épinal off to the left

If you want to read up on our time spent exploring Épinal please click here for the blog entry that should open in a separate window.  After the junction we had a 14-lock flight to ascend where the locks were in quick succession.

First lock of the flight ahead

As they were close together, they were in a chain meaning we only had to summon the first lock, and the rest set themselves whilst we were in the lock below.  Between each lock were large side ponds which helped with the water supply when many boats were going up and down the flight.  Many years ago most of the side ponds would have had wharves on them, but they have nearly all long gone being replaced by high tech business and retail parks.

One of the side ponds

The top lock and final side pond

We had a gentle lock-free cruise along the first part of the summit and moored up on a pontoon at Bouzey as we hadn’t been there before, and we also wanted to walk around the large reservoir near the village.  Not used to cruising in such glorious weather we were rather exhausted from being out in the sun all day so decided to leave the walk until Monday. The upturn in the weather had brought the butterflies out and there were plenty on the wing all day, mainly orange tips, brimstones and other members of the white family.

Our mooring at Bouzey for Sunday night

On Sunday we cruised 14 km up 19 locks and saw no boats on the move.

MONDAY 28 APRIL

Our overnight mooring was next to the lac de Bouzey which is a VNF reservoir that feeds the summit of the canal des Vosges.  There was a path around the lake so before it got too warm Karen ran around it in an anticlockwise direction and I walked the other way around.

It was a very pleasant walk, and we passed each other after I was about a third of the way around. 

Lac de Bouzey

I was disappointed as I only saw two butterflies having hoped to see many more, but I did find this swarm of honeybees:

Karen ended up running a lot further than I walked as she ran around the lake edge while the path I was on made a few short cuts.  Obviously, I returned to the boat after Karen did and we set off straight away for Girancourt where there’s a supermarket next to the canal where we could replenish our two empty gas bottles.  Soon after setting off we saw a map butterfly, our first of the year bringing our number of species to 10 for 2025 so far.  The map is not found in the UK but is the only European butterfly that has seasonal dimorphism where the spring and summer broods look quite different.

The village of Chaumousey

The summit was quite narrow for French canals and almost felt like a UK canal:

At one point there was a stretch that went through a cutting where the retaining walls looked like they had seen better days:

A sign halfway along the summit indicated the watershed between water flowing down to the Med and that flowing down to the North Sea.  We had been travelling up the Moselle valley which flows into the Rhine in Germany and then into the North Sea at Rotterdam.  We were now going downstream to meet the river Saône which then flows into the Rhône which empties into the Med.

When we reached the end of the summit we dropped down one lock and moored up at Girancourt.  We got the gas bottles out of the gas locker and trolleyed one over to the fuel station at the supermarket.  As we approached it we could see the supermarket was closed and couldn’t believe that once again we’d gone in the lunch break – you would have thought we would’ve learnt by now – lunch breaks are often 12 noon to 2.30pm.  We checked the gas botte store in case it had automatic dispensers as most larger supermarkets have but as it was a small supermarket we would have to go into the store to pay and get someone to exchange our bottle for us.  So that was a wasted trip and we trolleyed the empty bottle back again; thankfully it was only a 400 metre walk each way.  We then realised that it wasn’t closed for lunch as it didn’t actually open on Monday mornings at all, so we had nearly three hours to kill.

At Girancourt waiting for the shop to open

Next to the mooring was a cycle repair borne, only the second one we’ve ever seen.  As well as all the tools needed to repair a bike it even had a tyre pump that could be charged hydraulically.

The canal is situated on the Moselle-Saône cycleway (la voie bleue) which runs for 700 km from Luxembourg down to where the Saône meets the Rhône at Lyon.  It runs alongside the waterways for practically the whole route.

When the shop opened I made two trips to get two new gas bottles while Karen picked up some fruit and vegetables and then we carried on.

Leaving Girancourt

After leaving Girancourt the canal went through some lovely remote countryside following the Coney valley through the lower hills of the Vosges mountains.

We fancied mooring in a place like the photo above but the sides were too shallow.  We finally found somewhere deep enough just below a lock but sadly it was in the shade.

Moored below écluse 8 on Monday evening

We were in a short pound so left our lines slack in case the water levels dropped overnight.  You may recall that I am due to service the boat engine but keep procrastinating.  My latest plan is to do it on Thursday as the locks are closed for May 1^st or labour day.  The day is taken very seriously in France and everywhere seems to shut down so will be an ideal time to get on with job.

On Monday we cruised 10.5 km down seven locks and saw no boats on the move.